


The Curve

by threesmallcrows



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Dating, Humor, Original Character(s), Sexual humor because Saru
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-16
Updated: 2014-01-16
Packaged: 2018-01-08 22:35:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1138229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threesmallcrows/pseuds/threesmallcrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day the Red King ordered Yata to take dating lessons from Saruhiko Fushimi was the most embarrassing day of his life. That is, until the lessons themselves started.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. When Humiliated

The day Suoh Mikoto ordered Yata to take dating lessons from Saruhiko Fushimi was the most embarrassing day of his life.

That is, until the lessons themselves started.

()

Izumo Kusanagi, owner of the HOMRA bar, second in command to Mikoto Suoh, and widely considered the smartest member of the gang, put the freshly-polished glass down on his gleaming bar and said, “Call me crazy, but it might not be such a bad idea.”

At that precise moment, despite the utmost respect he had for Mikoto’s right hand man, Misaki Yata experienced a profound drop in his admiration for Kusanagi’s intelligence.

He spit milk all over the bar (milk, because God fucking damn it, it was never too late to try for a growth spurt). Kusanagi shot him a glance like a dagger.

“Sorry I’ll clean it up but _what_?”

“From a strategic point of view—”

“But it’s fucking Saru!”

“Yes, you’ve already mentioned that he’s offered to help you with your… girl problems.”

“It’s _Saru_!”

“Yata-chan, please calm down. I’m going to have to throw you out if you keep banging on the bar like that, and then you might run off and do something rash, and then we’d _all_ have to sort out your mess. Including Mikoto. Do you want that?”

The mention of his King does it. Yata sits back down, sitting on his hands for good measure.

“Now, try and listen to me. Whatever your personal opinion of Fushimi Saruhiko—and I think everyone in HOMRA knows what that opinion is—you can’t deny that he’s in a position of power in Sceptre 4. I deal with information, and I know how powerful, how _crucial,_ sometimes, a well-positioned inside man is. One spy can do a lot of damage if he is in the right place at the right time. Are you following me, Yata-chan?”

“But I wouldn’t be spying,” is all the defense Yata can summon. “Saruhiko’s too”—he’s going to say _smart,_ but bites the compliment back for principle’s sake—“stubborn to drop anything like that.”

“And for years we thought Sceptre 4 was impenetrable, yet here’s its third-highest head offering to help you with your personal life. _Offering._ To _help_ you. I mean, short of Munakata coming in to wipe my floor or some such thing… Try to stand in my shoes and see how obvious the choice is.”

“W-well, how do we know he’s not trying to spy on us?”

“He very probably is,” answers Kusanagi. “And that’s why you can’t screw up. What I’m saying here is that I trust you, and that HOMRA trusts you, to be able to play this game better than he can, and ensure that HOMRA comes out the winner. Besides…”

“Yeah?”

The barkeeper sighs and puts down the glass he’s polishing. “I don’t know how to say this delicately—”

“You don’t have to be delicate with me. I’m not one of your champagne flutes.”

This gets a laugh from him. “I’ll be blunt then. Yata-chan, you’re nineteen years old. Have you ever dated a girl before?”

“You, uh, that’s… no.”

“A boy, then?”

“Kusanagi-san! With all due respect, what the _fuck_!”

“Hey, how can you know if you’ve never tried?”

“Is that the principle you operate your romantic life on?”

“…That’s a forbidden topic for junior members! Look, I’m just trying to cover all the bases here. Anyway, who knows? On the off-chance Fushimi isn’t trying to drill a hole in our defenses via you, he might actually help you a little on—that front.”

 “Kusanagi-san, please tell me you’re shitting me. What could that dumbass bastard possibly know about women? As if one would even touch him with a five-meter pole!”

“Women like all sorts of strange things,” says Kusanagi with an oddly faraway look on his face. Yata’s skin crawls with embarrassment. He really doesn’t want to know what he’s talking, or flashbacking, or whatever, about.

“What’s this about women?”

At that moment, Yata’s vague desire to run away from the bar morphs into a positive need to flee.

 “ _Chiise_ ,” he mumbles miserably in Mikoto’s general direction.

Anna, attached as ever at the boss’ side, peers at him through a red marble.

“Are you okay, Yata?” she asks very kindly.

“I’m fine,” he grunts, energetically combating the temptation to crawl behind Kusanagi’s bar and never emerge.

“What’s wrong with him?” asks Mikoto, jerking a thumb in Yata’s general direction.

Yata’s head shoots up. He gives Kusanagi a look crossed between total pleading, fury, and nervousness.

Kusanagi cheerfully ignores him. Yata’s ears ring with a shattering noise as his hopes of avoiding complete and abject humiliation crash to the floor in pieces.

“Well, Yata-chan was actually talking about an interesting proposal with me!”

Yata makes a strangled noise. _Please don’t do this to me,_ he tries to say with his eyes, but Kusanagi is determinedly dodging his gaze as he explains away to the emotionless HOMRA boss. Anna, whose doll-like head is barely level with the bar’s surface, gives him a pitying look. At that moment, Yata begins thinking of ways he can resign from HOMRA. Mikoto-san won’t want him after this, hell, Anna won’t want him after this—

“Sure,” says Mikoto.

“What?” gasps Yata, surfacing from his misery like a man from a stormy sea.

“Sounds good.”

“You think it’s a good idea?”

“That’s what he just said,” says Anna pityingly.

Yata ignores her. “You want me to go ahead with this?”

“Yeah.”

“You want me to take dating advice from S-S-that fucking asswipe Saru.”

Looking bemused, the King replies, “I don’t care what you do with him so long as you spy on him while you do it.”

“See?” chirps Kusanagi. “All of us here have the utmost fate in you, even our King. Consider it a new assignment. Right?”

“Hm,” echoes Mikoto vaguely, his supply of conversation seemingly exhausted for the day, as he reaches behind the bar and pours himself some whiskey.

“It’s all settled then!”

_Betrayed,_ thinks Yata, collapsing face-first onto the bar as Kusanagi chuckles far too brightly. _Betrayed on all sides… Even Anna’s smirking at me. It’s all been for nothing. I’ll be the laughingstock of HOMRA, of Shizume fucking City…_

But, God damn it, Mikoto had given the word.

Now, what else could he do but obey?

()

“What makes you qualified, anyway?”  he snaps testily.

Saru stares at him testily, tilting his chair way back on two legs. Yata, who’s already sitting at least a meter from the edge of the café table, scoots his chair back another few centimeters. At this rate, they’re going to be at opposite ends of Sakura Square by their third minute of conversation.

Mikoto-san might’ve ordered him to go through with this shitty assignment, but that didn’t mean Yata had to enjoy it.

“I grew up with three sisters. You came from, what was it, a family of six boys?”

_Damn him for remembering._ And an absent escapee mother as well, so seven males total, with Yata the youngest of the entire lot… He was _supposed_ to be the long-expected daughter of the group, but though the doctor had sworn up, down and sideways that the sonogram showed a girl, no one could doubt the screaming child that arrived on a blazing July 20th was a male. By then, though, it’d been too late, and Misaki it was.

A shard of memory comes back to him: Saru and him on a lazy summer day, lying on the sidewalk, and Saru saying, “ _No wonder you’re so attached to that baseball bat. You probably had to fight your way into existence with it…_ ”

Saru is looking at him oddly. Has he been spacing out?

Recovering the thread of the conversation, Yata spits, “So what? Did you date all of them?”

“I’ve had seven girlfriends in the past two years,” Saru counters languidly.

“Didn’t know there were that many dumb girls in all of Japan.”

Saruhiko’s sigh is the essence of exasperation. His bangs flop with irritation. “Misaki, do me a favor.”

“Fuck you, I told you not to call me—”

“Count the number of times you’ve had a conversation with a girl over three minutes in length.”

“…What?”

“Hurry up and do it. Or have you lost even the intelligence required to understand basic Japanese?”

“I understood you perfectly fucking fine!” Yata barks. “But your question was just plain weird!”

“It wasn’t weird at all; what would be weird is your answer. Tell me. Ten? Less than that? Could you count the number on one hand, even?”

“ _Fuck you!_ ”                                                                               

“Is it—could it possibly be _zero_?”

“You know,” snarls Yata, “I’m coming very close to saying fuck what the King says and—” Then his brain kicks into action and his mouth snaps shut.

“Go on,” drawls Fushimi, his voice a lazy drip of black ink scarring the shocked, bleached silence of secrets accidentally revealed. “What did the King have to say?”

“…Said, that… I, I mean we… HOMRA shouldn’t antagonize Sceptre 4 anymore?” _Damn it,_ the end of the sentence comes out with a lilting rise.

“Well, for fuck’s sake don’t ask me; _I_ don’t know.”

“A-anyway, what the King says is none of your fucking business,” blusters Yata.

“You’re the one who brought him up! As if I want to hear more about Mikoto Suoh. He’s all you fucking talk about. Mikoto this, Mikoto that. One would think he’s your boyfriend or something.”

“The fuck did you just say? Take that back, asshole!”

“I don’t think I want to.” Saru stands abruptly. “Are you gonna make me, Mi-sa-ki?”

Yata smirks and pushes his chair back. “Bring it, you idiotic monkey, and I’ll shove your sword so far up your ass that the whole of Sceptre 4 won’t be able to pull it back out.”

“Well then, I’ll take your skateboard and jam it where the sun doesn’t—”

“I’d like to see you try!”

“Talk is cheap. Let’s go,” orders Saru, thumb sliding the hilt of his blade half a challenging centimeter from its scabbard.

Yata cracks his knuckles. “Sounds fucking good to m—”

Both their phones ring.


	2. When Compromised

For a moment, they stare at one another, frozen. Both know the other is seriously contemplating ignoring that ringing phone, and all its implications of angry superiors and future chew-outs, in favor of a good old-fashioned throwdown in the middle of Shizume City, consequences be fucked.

In the end, common sense prevails all round. Yata presses his finger almost violently against the screen. Briefly, he wonders if he can get away with melting the phone and calling it an accident.

“Hello-this-is-Yata,” he says sullenly, eyeing an equally unhappy looking Saru from the corner of his eye.

“Hi, it’s me.”

“Kusanagi-san…”

“Just wondering, how’re things going with Saruhiko-kun?”

“Fucking Saru-dumbass-monkey and me are getting along just dandy.”

“Is that irony I sense? I don’t like irony before nine, it makes the customers rowdy. Seriously, though, don’t tell me you’ve failed an assignment this important when you’re not even a day in…”

“I haven’t failed anything,” Yata half-whispers, half-grumbles, more than a little defensively.

“Good. Do HOMRA proud. See ya.”

He looks up from the phone to see Saru muttering expletives under his breath, pausing to feed polite-sounding _hai_ s and _yes ma’ams_ into the mouthpiece of his phone. No doubt it’s his busty lieutenant on the other side.

When Saru hangs up, he clicks his tongue and collapses back onto his chair.

“By all means,” he says, “feel free to get the fuck out of here. Don’t feel like I’m keeping you. I don’t know why I came up with this shitty idea in the first place.”

As tempting as it is to listen to him, Yata sits back down. “So what’d she say to you?”

“The Lieutenant? None of your business.” After a moment of heavy breathing and traded glares: “…So, what were we talking about before you got vulgar and started threatening me?”

“ _I_ started threatening _you_? Did your mom fucking drop a brick on your forehead when you were born? Clearly you were the one who started this whole thing!”

“Pick a girl.”

“Huh?”

“Right now. Look around and pick a girl, and try not to break your neck craning to see up anyone’s skirt.”

“Only you’d do something like that, vulgar monkey. Um, okay, that one. Brown hair in a ponytail, over there.”

“…Do you even have any taste in women?”

“ _Hah?_ You got a problem?”

“Whatever. C’mon, get up.”

“Get up—why?”

“Why do you think? Come _on_.”

“W-w-w-wait a goddamn second.”

“What for?”

“Just—sit down.”

“Why?”

“You can’t just throw me in there! You haven’t told me jack shit about anything yet!”

“Well, I believe in learning under fire. Really, it’s not like she’s going to bite your head off. Unless you _really_ screw up.”

“I don’t even know her!”

“Do you know _any_ girls?”

“…I know Anna!”

“…Who’ve passed puberty?”

“Don’t bring up awkward-as-hell things like that out of nowhere! Any-fucking-way, what the hell am I supposed to talk to her about?”

“Whatever the hell type of banalities you normally make conversation with people about! The weather, television! It’s talking, not rocket science.”

“We have _nothing_ in common!”

“You never know, she might be a violent gang member too. What a lovely couple that’d make. You could spend all your time arguing and bashing each other’s skulls in with wrenches.”

“As if. Gang members don’t look like that.”

Saru cocks an eyebrow. “They can clean up surprisingly well. I should I know. I dated one once.”

For a second Yata forgets that they’re sworn enemies, and it’s like they’re back in high school again. “Holy shit. Really?”

“Mhm.”

“What’d she look like?”

“He, and I dunno, pretty normal, I guess. Not like you’d expect of,” and then Saru must keep talking because Yata sees his lips moving and things, but hell if he knows what he’s saying because he kind of got stuck at _he._

He. He? _He?_ It’s not like they’ve been close in years, but still Yata feel as if he’d somehow mysteriously know about a shift this fundamental in Saru. Or, wait—has he always been like this? How long has this tricky bastard been playing both sides of the fence, anyway? _Why the fuck doesn’t he know about this?_ For fuck’s sake, he’s—

“He~llo? Earth to planet Misaki? God, planet Misaki, sounds like the name of a whorehouse. Anyway, here’s a situation you can learn from. People don’t like it when you space out while they’re talking to you. It makes it look like you think they’re boring. The least you can do is put on an interested face.”

“Oh, that’s rich coming from _you_ , who only knows how to move his face into that one dumb expression.”

“Whatever. Listen, if you don’t get up in five seconds, I’m going to have to drag you over. What kind of impression do you think that’s going to make? Come on, _Misaki,_ don’t start living up to your name now and become a total pussy—”

“Okay, that’s fucking enough. I’m going.”

“Good.”

“Fine.”

“All right then.”

He only starts regretting it after the third step. When he hesitates, Saru snaps his fingers at him like he’s some dog, and Yata has to restrain a growl.

All too soon, the two of them are hovering over the girl, who gives them a curious look.

“Hi. I’m Saruhiko Fushimi, and my friend thinks you’re very beautiful.”

Yata almost chokes on his own spit. _When the fuck did that side-talking bastard get so blunt?_

The girl considers them over the edge of her cellphone. Yata’s afraid if he tries to smile right now it’ll come out as a serial killer’s demented grin, so he just sticks with looking utterly confused.

Eventually, she puts the little device down, and replies, “Is your friend also mute, or just very shy?”

When Saru shoots him a look, Yata finds himself unable to make his cue. When it’s clear that he’s half-paralyzed with fear, Saru sighs. “The second one. His name is Mi—Yatagarasu.”

The sudden change of tact surprises Yata. He gives Saru an odd look, while the girl’s eyes bounce from one of them to the other like a spectator at a tennis match.

Did Saru just do him a favor?

“Miyatagarasu?” she offers. “That’s a very, uh, interesting name.”

“J-j-just Yatagarasu,” blurts Yata. “Or Yata. He just fucked up, that’s all.”

Saru rolls his eyes. The girl laughs. “You two are very strange, you know that?”

“We’re just ennfuhhhhh—friends is all,” says Saru.

When he hears that, Yata almost considers challenging him to a fight again, before realizing that there wasn’t really anything else he could have said: fuck, the truth? We’re onetime best friends, turned bitter enemies on opposite sides of a gang war?

Well, fuck, this is awkward.

The girl glances slowly from Saru to Yata.

“Well, is it true?” she demands suddenly.

Yata almost jumps out of his skin. “What?”

“What he said, silly. Do you really think that, or did your clever talker of a friend make that up for you?”

And this time, finally, he’s able to say the right thing:

“He didn’t make it up,” he says. “I think y-y-y-ou’re really um I think you’re pretty cute yeah.”

“It’s like pulling teeth from a cat with this one,” murmurs Saru, irritation coating his voice like grit. “You two have fun, since it looks like you’re off to a lovely start.”

Helpless, Yata watches desperately as he strides off, a thin slice of blue, and feels utterly betrayed. It brings up a bad feeling in his gut: the memory of that day, when that fucking coward betrayed HOMRA—

“—garasu-kun?”

_Fuck!_ She must’ve asked him something! Damn Saru for distracting him.

“S-sorry, what?”

“Nothing, I just asked do you go to Ashinaka?”

“Um, I’m actually, um, not in high school…”

“Really?”

“… becau~seeee, uh, I’m nineteen? Sooo, I already g-graduated.”

 Calling the events of the following five minutes ‘making conversation’ would be far too kind. Yata can’t—he just can’t _talk_ with her. Even though the poor girl hurtles a veritable battalion of questions at him, he can’t summon more than a short, few-word response to each one. Hyper-conscious of her female-ness, of gleaming hair and lip gloss and boobs and skirt and everything else, Yata finds his tongue crippled. It doesn’t help that she treats him with the vague amusement one usually uses to deal with young children.

Mercifully, after the five minutes is up, she rises slightly and says, “Actually, I have to meet a friend at 2, so…”

“Oh,” says Yata weakly. “Yeah. I mean, okay.”

She stands, snapping her purse shut, and sort of gives him a little pat on the arm.

“You’re doing fine, really. Just try to breathe more—you look like there’s a boa constrictor strangling you. See you around, Miyatagarasu.”

“S-s-see—”

She’s gone.

Yata sits back down and sort of just gasps for a few seconds. He touches his face with one finger and discovers that his skin is flaming hot. _Damn that Saru for throwing me under the bus like that, that bastard… That was a fucking disaster any way you think about it…_

“Done already?”

Yata jumps. Saru has somehow reappeared beside him.

“Don’t tell me—you dropped that you were in HOMRA and she ran away.”

“She had to meet a fucking friend, okay.”

“Really. Is that what she said.”

“Fuck you! Maybe if you’d actually given me some advice, she would’ve stuck around longer!”

“Advice is theory, and theory only works in theory. You need to practice.”

“If you’re telling me to go find another girl, I swear to God—”

“Then practice on me.”

“What?”

“Just—try and use that limited imagination of yours, and pretend like you’re talking to a girl. Okay? It’s not like you even have the harder job here; I’m the one who has to—”

“It’s a hard job either way if we have to pretend to fucking like each other! Besides, there’s no way I can think of you as a girl.”

Saru stares at him for a second, then suddenly drags a chair around the table and sits right in front of Yata. Like, _right in front._ Their knees collide. He can see his reflection in Saru’s glasses. Yata balks, but Saru clamps a hand on his shoulder, preventing him from backing up.

“Wh-what the fuck, Saru,” splutters Yata, trying to pick Saru’s fingers off his sweater.

“Don’t back up. I’m trying to make you uncomfortable.”At this distance, Yata can smell mint on his breath. “Are you nervous?”

“Of course I’m fucking nervous! I feel like you’re going to try and stab me or something.”

“Perfect. Let’s talk about the weather.”

“ _What_?”

“Tell me your name. Pretend.”

“Y-Yatagara—”

“Look in my eyes when you talk to me.” Obeying is a mistake: Saru’s unblinking stare makes Yata feel like they’re stuck in a staring contest. His skin crawls. “Stop moving your head so much—you look like you have a nervous twitch. And don’t keep glancing away—any girl’d think you were bored, with the way you’re acting.” Yata feels Saru’s fingers pinch his chin, brace-like, and steer his face back towards him. He wonders if this is how a mouse feels between a cat’s paws. Saru’s nails are long enough that they dig slightly into Yata’s skin. “And don’t cross your arms, it makes you look defensive. Now, what do you like?”

“I-I, um, I—” _Damn it,_ it’s working. He’s nervous as all hell. His palms are sweating.

Saru laughs. Yata almost falls off his chair in shock because Saru _never_ laughs. Then he realizes that it’s fake, of course—but it’s also damn convincing. He’s become an even better actor than he was before.

 “You’re a funny guy, Yatagarasu-kun.” Saru leans forward, and Yata tries with all his might to ward him off mentally, but when his right hand finally succumbs to the overwhelming temptation to punch Saru in the stomach, he finds that both his wrists are pinned down by his cold hands. Saru’s face is all he can see and Saru’s face is _different,_ it’s interested and engaged and his pupils are blown wide and his lips curve slightly upwards as if in spite of themselves; his indifference has vanished and Yata’s walking blind, tightroping across this strange new land. Briefly, it occurs to him that this tightness in his chest, this wet-palmed feeling is exactly how he feels around girls, and that by extension Saru’s actually doing a great job, and maybe he should really just keep playing this weird game…?

But it’s all too uncomfortable, and Yata snaps, “Fucking let go of me, Saru!”

“I’m not Saru,” Saru counters smoothly, and oh man, any last modicum of personal space Yata might have possessed is flying out the fucking window. “I’m someone you love, and I’m telling you right now that I like you a lot. What do you say to that?”

“I—I can’t— _Saru_ —”

“Yata, what’re you doing?”

Inches from Yata’s face, Saru’s expression changes instantly; boredom slams back down over his face like steel shutters. He leans slightly back, his hands leaving Yata’s wrists to echo the icy aftershocks of his skin. 

“You didn’t tell me you were bringing the fire brigade,” he drawls. “Really, Misaki, I feel like next time I should bring Munakata with me just to even the balance.”

“What the fuck is he doing here?”

Bando, Akagi, and Kamamoto circle the two of them cautiously, like hunters circling a wolf. Saru leans back in his chair and glances at them with hooded eyes. Yata can feel three curious stares boring like drills into his head, silently demanding an explanation.

When Saru stands, all three of them flinch, knees bending, backs hunching, fists rising—the posture of people expecting an attack. Funny, how Yata had almost forgotten that he was the enemy.

But Saru doesn’t draw his sword, doesn’t even acknowledge the other HOMRA members.

All he says is, “I’ll see you around, Misaki.”

And then leaves Yata to his drying sweat, racing heart and compromising situation.


	3. When Confronting Small Girls

Three days later, Yata stands on highway 158, watching a helicopter come smashing down in front of him like a clumsy falling star.

Technically, it’s his bat that hit it. Technically, it’s his fault.

But _fuck_ that. It’s really all Saru’s doing. 

Which is ironic, because Yata hasn’t so much as seen Saru since they last met in Sakura Square, thank God. As for the HOMRA side of the problem, Yata gets remarkably lucky as well— it turns out some upstart yakuza or other has made a move on the northwest corner of their territory, which is why Bando, Akagi, and Kamamoto had come looking for him in the first place. This translates into lots of head-bashing duty for everyone, especially when Chitose’s latest girl somehow gets dragged into the ruckus and ends up in the hospital with a hairline fracture. All in all, Yata’s not naïve enough to think that the three of them have forgotten anything, but at least they’re all busy enough that no one brings it up.

It’s all going dandy until, late one afternoon, Yata’s watch buzzes. _One new message from Saruhiko Fushimi._

It’s an image captioned only, _thought of you._

Puzzled, Yata peers at the pixilated picture for a good ten seconds—

And shouts “Fuck that fucker!”

In and of itself, that’s fine, but then the man who’s been unsubtly trailing Yata for the last half hour interprets this as a signal to panic and start firing his gun. Which _sucks,_ because Yata had been working on luring him into an abandoned alley so he could dispatch him as quietly as possible. Sure, one superheated baseball bat to the head takes care of him, but it doesn’t do anything about the three police cars that promptly descend on him like flies on honey. And when he’s done with _those,_ and every motherfucking car on the street’s honking at him like he can press some button and undo the shit out of the five-lane traffic jam now sprawling across the road, a fucking _helicopter_ shows up.

Yata chucks his bat at the helicopter, wishing it was Saru’s head that goes down in spectacular flames seconds later.

As the helicopter send a good chunk of the highway crumbling to pieces, bits of flaming char bouncing harmlessly off Yata’s clothes, his watch buzzes, this time with a text from Kusanagi. By now, Yata’s not even surprised that he already knows—like a law of physics, Kusanagi’s ability to know everything about everyone was as undeniable as it was incomprehensible. 

barmanmeilleur: hi yata-chan. you’re on the news right now so smile. btw, did you really have to use a helicopter to kill him?

barmanmeilleur: like were you just not feeling the bat

barmanmeilleur: more of a let’s cause a public disturbance kind of day

yataofhomra: sorry

yataofhomra: but it’s bc

yataofhomra: saru sent me this and then a lot of shit happened

He forwards the picture.

barmanmeilleur: ….

barmanmeilleur: that’s actually pretty funny :P

yataofhomra: …ur not helping

barmanmeilleur: but it is

barmanmeilleur: lol

yataofhomra:… what

barmanmeilleur:  i just showed it to anna and some people. they think its hilarious

yataofhomra: WHAT

yataofhomra: ARE YOU FCKING SERIOUS

yataofhomra: WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT

yataofhomra: KUSANAGI-SANNNNNNNNN

yataofhomra: u there

yataofhomra: hello??????

yataofhomra: well fuck

He closes the chat tab, exposing Saru’s picture still lurking open in the background.

_Thought of you._ At first, he hadn’t realized what Saru was talking about. It seemed to just be a photo of a crowd of people walking around. It took him a few seconds to find the little girl in the midst of it all.

She was maybe eight or nine years old, a scrawny redhead with two bouncy pigtails dressed in a fluffy pink dress who was unmistakably in the middle of throwing a screaming fit. And everything about her resembled Yata.

For Christ’s sake, it wasn’t just that their hair were near exactly matching shades of fire-engine red. It was her expression and her posture, the way she balled her fists, the way her feet were planted firmly apart. If Yata was eight, and a girl, and about _four-foot-fucking-nine_ —

Piling insult on insult, a few seconds later, Saru had sent him a clarification: _in case u couldn’t tell girl = u._ This time the photo had the girl’s face circled messily in red and a badly cropped photo of his own face pasted next to it. _resemblance is amazing, she could be ur twin. maybe she’s called misaki too_

This is how Yata had ended up causing a helicopter crash.

As if things weren’t going great enough, when he gets back to HOMRA, there’s a good five or six members sitting around and having a laugh at the photo, which Kusanagi has oh-so-helpfully projected onto the wall of the bar.

“Hey, Yata-san—you’re the man of the hour!”

“The star himself.” Laughter all around. “Really, are you sure you don’t have any long-lost sisters? ‘Cause that chick, like, _is_ you.”

Yata slaps Bando so hard in the head that he nearly falls off the bar stool. Which, unfortunately, doesn’t phase anyone else.

“I mean, I hate to admit it,” Kamamoto continues, popping half a chunk of puff pastry into his mouth, “but that Blue’s really right—the resemblance really is startling. Like, especially with that photo of you—your heads are even at the same angle and everything—”

“It’s _perfect._ I wonder where he got that?”

“D’you think he stalks you?”

“ _Oooh,_ yeah—he definitely seems the stalker type.”

“I can see it.”

“ _Why_ ,” Yata growls, “do none of you sound one _fucking_ iota concerned about this?” 

“So he does stalk you then!”

“ _I never said that_!”

“Chihuahua,” interjects Eric from the couch, which really makes no fucking sense in any context whatsoever, but sends Yata flying off the handle anyway.

At a sigh and a nod from the long-suffering Kusanagi, Kamamoto manhandles Yata out the door as he screeches, “C’mere and I’ll beat some Japanese into your head, you dirty-mouthed little—And you, fucking let go of me!”

And that’s how it goes, for the next few days—the photo relentlessly circulating amongst HOMRA, teasing comments and laughter erupting wherever it lands while Yata, helpless, grinds his teeth and plots a thousand horrible deaths for Saru. Saru, who goes frustratingly silent as Yata bombards him with incredibly creative death threats. In fact, it’s not until afternoon on a windy Friday, over a week from their last meeting, that Saru finally texts Yata something mildly useful:

sfushimi: meet me at the east gate of Sunshine City tmrrw at 2

sfushimi: and do yourself a favor and get some new clothes before

yataofhomra: wow thanks for all the notice

yataofhomra: oh and btw, in case u didn’t read any of the other messages

yataofhomra: FUCK YOU

sfushimi: what. don’t like being in the news?

yataofhomra: u saw that??

sfushimi: …obviously

yataofhomra: what does that mean…

sfushimi: don’t be late

yataofhomra: wait

yataofhomra: fucking answer my question

yataofhomra: saru

yataofhomra: FUCK YOU

As much as he feels like disobeying Saru for principle’s sake, Yata makes the trip to a nearby department store anyway, mainly because when he caught Anna staring oddly at his back a week or two ago and asked what she was doing, she’d serenely replied, “Counting the number of holes in your sweater.” Inside, the crowd whirls along like a hurricane, sweeping floor-to-ceiling in a frenzy of early Christmas shopping. Helpless, Yata ends up being blown from one elevator to another, one floor to the next, without ever catching sight of a men’s department.

They always make these places so fucking confusing. This is why Yata hates shopping. He can’t remember the last time he set foot in one of these glossy, sparkly, loud buildings. It must’ve been when he bought this sweater…

Ah. He slows, letting the crowd shove him off to the side. That’s right.

Last time he’d been with Totsuka-san.

This is the thing, with Totsuka. You miss him in a thousand ways you never thought about when he was here. The smell of a new dish. Or the red, winking eye of his ancient video camera. Or horrid skateboarding in the late afternoons. Or someone to help elbow you through the crowds in a mall. His absence is defined by his lack of presence, by all the times everyday Yata realizes with a dull ache that he isn’t here. He’s missing in fragments, from every argument that doesn’t get smoothed over, every newcomer that they don’t quite know how to handle, every sticky situation that gets solved with fists instead of politics. And every time Yata sees him in what could have been, it’s like the wounds are reopened  a little, and he takes a little longer to heal—

“—vert.”

A small noise jolts him out of his thoughts. Yata glances around, but doesn’t see anyone talking to him.

A second later, there it is again: nearly inaudible, but quite clear.

“Pervert.”

“What the fuck?” Where is that coming from?

After glancing left, right, around, and even _above_ for good measure, Yata glances suspiciously at the floor near his feet. Squatting, he pushes aside a forest of hangers on the lowest bar of the rack right next to him.

 


	4. When Confronting (Hot) Aunts

Bingo. A little girl, about five years old, twin indigo pigtails curling around her shoulders, sits on the base of the rack with her knees tucked beneath her chin. What she’s doing down there, lurking like some fairy of commerce observing her kingdom, Yata has no idea. 

Some kind of damn sassy-mouthed fairy—

_Be nice. She’s just a kid._

With an attempt at a smile that emerges a grimace, Yata says, “What’re you doing down there?”

“I have more of a right to be down here than you. Sicko.”

“Well, the only reason I _came_ down here was because of you. And stop calling me that.”

“Perv,” she says a little louder.

“ _Sh._ ” He glances over his shoulder, but it’s only the two of them. “Why d’you keep saying that?”

“Why else would you be standing in the lingerie department for like ten minutes?”

“The— _what_?”

She points above his head. “Look.”

Yata glances up, just in time to see an entire rack of D-cup bras descending on him in a hailstorm of lace.

His “ _fuck!_ ” is muffled slightly by the crash of the rack hitting the floor. Clawing his way out of the pile of underwear, Yata feels his face turn flaming hot. Of all the fucking places he had to zone out…

The girl is standing a few feet away, apparently unharmed.

“Did you just push that over on me, you little brat?” he demands.

“I didn’t do anything. I just stood up.”

“ _It’s the same damn thing!_ ”

“ _Pervert_!” she hollers back.

“Fuck—shhh! I’m not a—I was just lost.”

“For ten minutes?”

“I was thinking!”

“I _bet_ you were.”

Jesus fucking _Christ,_ this girl’s an annoying brat, and way too precocious for her age. She’s like a fucking miniature girl Saru. Maybe he should video this and sent it to him; caption it _thought of you._ Would fucking serve him right, too.  

“…Okay, you know what, fuck this,” Yata growls. “I am _not_ having this argument with a five-year-brat. I’m going, okay? So you can stop calling me names.”

He turns and begins the long process of stalking out of the enormous lingerie department, but then that voice pipes up again, no farther away from him.

“Pervert.”

“Stop following me,” he snarls.

“Perv.”

“Get lost. Seriously.”

“ _Hentai_.”

He whirls around. “Okay, I’m telling you right now, loud and clear, to fucking stop following me and go back to your mom or whoever brought you here. You’re annoying and I don’t want to deal with you.”

She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t look hurt or cry (thank God, Yata has no clue how he’d deal with that), but something in her expression shifts.

Hesitating, Yata looks closer, and realizes _—_  

“…Are you lost?”

“You’re a pedo,” she mutters, instantly latching onto his wrist with her hands.

“… oh, you have a lot of fucking guts to be saying that when you’re the one clinging to me like a monkey.”

“Pedo.”

“…Listen, you want me to leave you here?”

“You wouldn’t.”

Damn it. As tempting as the idea is, he won’t. He can’t. And she knows it.

He sighs. “Okay, I’m walking you to the, whatever, the counter or the pound or wherever it is they put lost kids in this place, and that’s it. My good deed for the day, or more like the fucking year. So don’t think I’m taking you home or some shit like that.”

“I wouldn’t want to go anyway. You smell funny.”

“… Christ, you really don’t know how to deal with people, do you?”

“I’m five. At least _I_ have an excuse for not knowing how to deal with people.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“No~thing. And you might want to stop yelling at me. People are gonna think bad about you.”

Yata grits his teeth and stares at the ceiling. It seems that all the little girls in the city have been mobilized to torment him this past week. _Another ten minutes,_ he thinks. _Another ten minutes and if I haven’t found somewhere to dump her I’ll just leave her where she is, karma, God, and the rest be damned._

Fifteen  minutes, four misdirections, and several dozen creative curses (Yata’s) and filthy looks (assorted shoppers’) later, they finally found a salesperson who knows where the lost-and-found is. On the elevator ride down to the appropriate floor, Yata feels the girl shaking against him. She’s only wearing a thin cotton dress and the air-conditioning in here is brutal. That must’ve been why she was hiding beneath that rack, Yata realizes—she wanted to get warm.

Subtly as possible, he heats up his arm a little. Maybe he overdoes it—she starts in surprise, then gives him a long, odd look. He half-smiles at her. “You’re cold, right?” But she doesn’t respond.

Thank God, not too much longer after that Yata finally catches sight of the lost-and-found. As they approach, a teenage girl comes flying out and crushes the girl in an embrace.

A teenage girl.

A teenage girl.

A cute teenage girl.

Whose blousy top’s low-cut neckline droops lower and lower as she bends over to embrace the little girl, revealing a pair of perfectly shaped—

“Reina! Oh, thank God—I had no clue where you were! Where’d you go, you dummy?”

“I got lost.”

“And this nice man brought you back?” She gestures at Yata, who freezes in the process of trying to simultaneously determine the temperature of his face and control his bloodflow. _Think of wrinkled old grannies. Think of dogs getting run over. Think of, God damn it, think of—_

“Mmmm.” A tiny, sulky nod of assent from Reina.

“Where’s your thank you?”

“ _—rigato_ ,” she mutters.

“C’mon, say it properly,” the girl admonishes. She shifts her weight slightly, causing that damned neckline to slip again. Yata feels his eyes being not so much drawn as forcibly sucked southwards. Trying to move them away is like using a thread to haul a refrigerator upstream—in short, it isn’t going to happen.

“ _A-ri-ga-to_ ,” says the girl.

“ _Arigato_ ,” she intones murderously, glaring daggers at Yata.

The older girl sighs and glances somewhere in the region of Yata’s face, which Yata interprets as his cue to initiate a staring contest with her shoes. “And that’s as close as she’ll get to good manners. Thanks for taking the trouble to bring her back. God knows Reina can be a handful at the best of times.”

“Shhh-eee sure knows a lot of, of, um, in-interesting words,” he says to her big toe.

“Our family’s not the best at raising well-behaved children.”

“Your sister she’s? Um, I mean—”

“Niece—my older sister’s daughter.” A hand effortlessly interrupts Yata’s line of sight. “I’m Nana, by the way.”

Lost in the mesmerizing, jewl-like shimmer of each of this Nana chick’s perfectly manicured nails, Yata stares at her outstretched hand for about fifteen seconds before realizing what she’s waiting for.

“Y-Yatagarasu-nice-to-meet-you,” he mutters. He gives her hand about quarter of a shake before dropping it. It seems _his_ hand has suddenly dedicated itself to disgorging a dam’s worth of sweat. Reina shoots him a filthy look, as if she knows exactly what he’s thinking about.

 “He can do the fire thing,” she says suddenly.

“What?”

“In the elevator, because I was cold he made himself really warm with the red fire.”

The girl gives him a slow onceover. Yata feels her gaze as acutely as a steel rake dragging across his skin.

“Yatagarasu… it can’t be—are you Misaki Yata?”

Yata starts.

“Yeah… Sorry, but I don’t—do we, have we… know each other?”

From behind her aunts’ skirts, Reina mouths something that looks a hell of a lot like “what a loser.” Yata tries to ignore her. 

“Yeah! Or, sort of. Sorry, it’s just—my full name’s Nana Fushimi. Saru’s my older brother. You guys used to hang out a lot a few years back, right?”

“Oh…”

Hotness and all, Nana instantly shifts into the “totally non-dateable” portion of Yata’s brain. It’s not just that she’s related to Saru, although that’s a big part of it: Yata had totally misjudged her age. Nana’s at least five years younger than him—although she hardly looks it... Of course, his brain and mouth then choose to slowly reconcile the violent differences they seem to have every time a cute girl enters his airspace, and relative coherence is reestablished.“Yeah, come to think of it, I think I saw you a couple of times at his house. Sorry I didn’t remember. It’s just that you’ve kind of changed a lot.”

“No, I get it—it’s been a while for both of us. Are you two still friends at all, or…?”

“We—not really, no. We sort of, um, fell out after he joined the Blues—I mean, Sceptre 4.”

“That’s a pity. I was kinda hoping you knew where he was, or at least how to get in touch with him.”

“Are you looking for him?”

“Not specifically at the moment, but in general, yeah. A bunch of our family took the trouble to travel out to Shinren General this past week, but now that everyone’s here, the one guy that lives here has vanished completely. He won’t pick up his cell, and none of us know his apartment number. Mom’s going to blow a gasket if we don’t find him soon.”

“Shinren General, like the hospital?”

Nana turns grave eyes on him. It’s so fucking weird seeing Saru’s murky eyes and heavy lashes on a young girl’s face, solemn with a young girl’s worry. “It’s our dad. He’s been quite sick for a while now, and he wants see us all again before, you know, it’s too late.”

Oof; that sure turned the conversation heavy. “Wow, that’s, um, pretty terrible…” When she doesn’t say anything, Yata quickly adds, “But it’s fucking typical of that shitty monkey not to show up. What a total bastard.”

“I don’t really blame him, though. He was never exactly close with Dad. And you know Saru—a coward to the end.”

“…You mean he’s afraid of him?”

Because Yata knows Saru’s dad used to hit him sometimes, back when they were in middle school. He never brought it up, because he figured it wasn’t anything out of hand—hell, between his gang of older brothers, it wasn’t as if Yata didn’t get his ass handed to him every other day. They’d both make fun of each other’s bruises in the locker room at school, and anyway, Saru stopped showing up hurt after they entered high school. It’s not like either of them have been through anything like Eric Sutr, with his scarred wrists and cigarette burns.

Maybe. Now Yata is wondering. What if things were worse between the two than he had thought? Could trauma of some sort explain—excuse—the monkey’s shitty, lazy-ass attitude, endless cynicism and sociopathy? And even if Nana were to spin some sort of sob story, would that allow Yata to forgive him? 

“What?” Nana’s voice startles him out of his thoughts. “No. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that he’s… well, you know, it’s Saru.”

“Um…?”

“I mean… I’m sure you’ve noticed that he doesn’t really like being attached to people. So he’d rather run away.”

“I dunno. Seems like a pretty fucking confrontational guy to me. I mean, every time I see him he’s picking fights with people. And he’s always bragging about getting more powerful, or whatever.”

“But the thing is, he just fights to fight. Not really to win anything or protect anything. I don’t even think it’s for himself. It’s a cowardly kind of aggression.”

“I—I guess. I never really thought about him that way.”

“Most people don’t. Maybe it’s because I grew up with him that I can see how much of a coward he is. I think that’s why Saru’s such a cynic. In a way, it’s like, if you always expect the worst of people, it’s easier because you can never be let down. If you hope for something, or put yourself out there, it’s always possible that things will go wrong, so Saru would rather just not believe the best about anything—other people or himself. I mean, did you know he’s actually really smart?”

“Please! As if he’d ever let me forget about it! He rubbed it in my face all damn day.”

“But in school—he always played average. Right?”

“Right… Come to think of it, he should’ve been able to test into Ashinaka no problem. He shouldn’t even have been in our school.”

“That’s what I thought, too. But no one in our family was even shocked when he said he’d failed the entrance exam, because he’s always like that. Who even knows what his results were. Or maybe he didn’t even bother taking the test at all. Saru sabotages his own chances.”

“When you put it like that it sounds so depressing.”

“He’s a depressing kind of person. _Ne,_ Yatagarasu-kun?”

“Hm?”

“I wanted to ask… well, maybe this is sort of a weird question, but I’ve never seen Saru really happy before. Have you?”

“I—”

He’s about to say _sure_ , but then he really thinks about it. Back in high school, at best, maybe he’d get a smirk and a lazy sort of contentedness out of Saru. And in HOMRA he’d always been the odd one out, a spectator hovering on the fringes, a blue-smudged shadow fading from the bar or getting drunk. With a jolt, Yata realizes he’s never really heard the guy laugh.

Eventually, he says, “I don’t know.”

“Figures.” Nana smiles. “He’s a terrible older brother and an irresponsible bastard, but if it’s at all possible, I’d like him to be happy someday. If only to keep this one happy,” she says, nudging Reina gently with her elbow. “She adores Uncle Saru, doesn’t she?”

“I don’t _adore_ anyone, Nana. Geez.”

Nana sighs, glancing at her phone. “Take my word for it, the kid loves him. Anyway, I’d better be heading back, or Mom will be worrying. I’m sure she doesn’t need another one of her kids disappearing. It was nice chatting with you, Misaki-kun.”

“You too. I hope—I hope your Dad gets better.”

“Thanks,” she says, even as her smile saddens.

After she leaves, Yata flips out his skateboard and heads towards HOMRA. He can’t think when there’s too many people around, so he takes the back alleys, mindlessly grinding down steel handrails and flipping over garbage bins.

_If it’s at all possible, I’d like him to be happy someday._

Is it possible? With a guy like Saru?

For some reason, this brings up a memory that Yata had forgotten he had: of the two of them, the only ones in a sleepy arcade in the middle of a blazing summer day; inside the heat of the machine turns the dark room nearly volcanic. _There’s no such thing as heroes,_ Saru says to him, fingers pressing at the worn plastic buttons of the console. _That’s what they should be teaching kids instead of all this believe-in-your-dreams crap._

Yata attempts and fails a five-hit combo. _Do you really believe that?_

_Of course._ Drop-kicks Yata’s character into a roof. _I’m not just being contrary. Give me evidence of a hero, and I’ll start believing right away. I can’t believe in what doesn’t exist._

_Well, Mikoto-san, obviously._

_Mikoto?_ Saru’s fingers still for a moment; Yata scrambles for the advantage and almost slides off the platform by accident. _The fuck? Don’t make me laugh. He’s just the leader of a bunch of street punks who pick off yakuza for fun. What future is there in Mikoto?_

_Can you fucking stop thinking so practically for once?_

_Don’t be naive. The way you’re acting like a child disgusts me. If you’re really so blind as to how the real world works, then you’re just hopeless._

_How the real world works?_ Saru’s starting to really tick him off. _What, you’re saying there’s no such thing as loyalty in the real world? Or family? How the fuck do_ you _see the world, anyway?_

_I’ll tell you. In the real world, there’s no one to rely on but yourself._ Powering up, Saru levels Yata with his ultimate attack. HP, 0; game, over. Saru turns to look at him.

_Friendship, family—those things all dry up in time. In the end, all human being are really brutes. And I’m no different._

Yata takes his hands off the machine. _Then what about me?_

_What?_

_Me. I’m asking if you believe that about me._

_You’re—you’re nothing but a kid, Misaki._

_Is there anything so wrong with that?_

_Hurry up and grow up already. The world won’t wait for you._

_Maybe you need to take your own advice._

_Me? I’m already grown up._

His retort comes several years too late, but Yata says it anyway: “As if. You haven’t moved forwards at all.”


End file.
